Facebook Tearing Down the Gated Walls

Today Facebook will announce a significant shift in its approach on privacy vs. public display.  This will be just as much a shift in community culture and the way users on the most popular social network communicate.

For years Facebook has stood firm on maintaining a sense of structure and privacy where its users only rubbed digital elbows with other Facebook members they already had a connection with. Today that changes in two significant ways:

• Users will now be able to broadcast status updates for anyone in the world to see
• Facebook will implement a search feature that allows for viewing of public updates based on specific keywords (similar to Twitter Search)

Both Mashable and Facebook Insider have extensive coverage on the details of the new development.

From our perspective there are two additional things worth noting.  First, from a marketing perspective this is an absolute game-changer. Public updates and associated search now allow for individuals and brands to keep an ear to the ground on what the Facebook community is saying about specific topics.  This has always been possible with Twitter, but opening that possibility up in the much larger Facebook community means a whole lot more information to use for research and information.

Second, on a personal note I’m going to throw my hat in the ring and say this is a brilliant move for Facebook.  Already there has been some questioning as to whether this move will be a detriment to the success of the social network.  After all, it’s been built on privacy all these years and changing that could mean the community begins to turn its back.  The other side of the story, and where I align with, is that this means progress.

The very public and very steep decline of MySpace has come for many reasons, but most of all the network’s inability to shift with the times and improve their product to meet the competitive landscape.  Facebook is doing just that - seeing what we are all finding so engaging about Twitter and beginning to incorporate that in their world so they aren’t left behind.